Dravidian Languages and Telugu

Contributed by Ramana Juvvadi (juvvadi@research.att.com)

According to the Russian linguist M.S. Andronov, Proto-Dravidian
gave rise to 21 Dravidian Languages. They can be broadly
classified into three groups: Northern group, Central group, and
Southern group of Dravidian languages.

The Northern group consists of three languages. The central group consists
ten langauages. Out of these ten, only telugu became a civilized
language and the rest of the nine languages remained tribal languages.
The southern group consists of languages which includes Kannada, Tamil,
Malayalam, Tulu and others.

Telugu split from Proto-Dravidian between 1500-1000 BC. So, Telugu became
a distinct language by the time any literary activity began to appear in
the Tamil land.

Kannada split from Proto-Dravidian around 0 BC. Note that the current
similarity in scripts between Kannada and Telugu has a lot more
with Chalukyas rule of Andhra than the similarity between the
languages. Admittedly, Kannada is Telugu's closest cousin. In
India the history of scripts has been almost independent of
the history of languages.

Proto-Dravidian gave rise to totally 21 Dravidian languages. They are

Northern Group

Brahui

Malto

Kudukh

Central Group

Gondi

Konda

Kui

Manda

Parji

Gadaba

Kolami

Pengo

Naiki

Kuvi

Telugu

Southern Group

Tulu

Kannada

Kodagu

Toda

Kota

Malayalam

Tamil

The other languages in the Central group provide invaluble information
in deducing the prehistory of Telugu.

Gonds and Koyas(speaking Konda language) are closely related tribes.
Gonds have an interesting story about the origin of their tribe.
It also matches the story Koyas have to say about their origin.
Once upon a time there were 1600 crores of Koyas at Dhavalagiri.
They were very dirty and never used to take bath. Mahadeva got
disgusted at their dirtiness and jailed them in a cave. However
Parvati was very fond of them. She did penance and got a son
called Lingo. Linga prayed Mahadeva that Koyas should be released.
Shiva would release them on the condition that Lingo performs all the
adventures that Shiva asks. Once Lingo performed all of them
successfully, Shiva had to release them.

Lingo went away on a journey with all 1600 crores of them.
On the way they crossed a river. Lingo gave them rice and
"Jonna Pindi". There Koyas stole ghee of Aryan deities.
By then there were already four groups among them called
Taekam, Maarkam, Poosam, and telingam. Lingo built a town
for them and divided them into castes.

There is a possibility that the words 'telingam' and telugu come from
the same source.